April 21st and 22nd are big days for the history of Connecticut and the Connecticut Coalition for Justice in Education Funding. This broad based advocacy organization—municipalities, school boards, professional education associations, unions, parents and students among its many members—will follow up an April 21^st news conference with a next day appearance before the State Supreme Court. The Coalition’s legal team will be presenting oral arguments in its fight for an “adequate” education for every Connecticut child. It will be appealing Judge Shortall’s lower court ruling that no entitlement to such a level of education exists under the state’s constitution.

I don’t doubt for a minute—and neither should you—that defining exactly what an adequate education should entail is no easy task. But that said, any difficulty in defining, quantifying or implementing the concept of adequacy in educational opportunity has no bearing on whether or not the entitlement exists.

Article Eighth, SEC. 1., of the State Constitution reads: “There shall always be free public elementary and secondary schools in the state. The general assembly shall implement this principle by appropriate legislation.” I’m no lawyer, and certainly not a judge. But it seems illogical to me that the framers direction to the general assembly to take “appropriate” action to carry out its educational duty could be satisfied by providing for an inadequate level of education. Consequently for me—and I hope the Supreme Court sees it the same way—the concept of adequacy is embedded in the constitutional instructions to the general assembly.

I also agree with the Coalition’s position that adequacy goes beyond the notion of equity, which—following Horton v. Meskill—has been the bedrock of Connecticut’s educational philosophy and much of its funding policy for thirty years. Unfortunately, while the funding philosophy and the formulas for equity have been in place for decades, the implementation has often lagged behind the intentions. This is currently the case with a one year old Education Cost Sharing (ECS) reform package that is already behind schedule. This billion dollar package—if fully funded sooner rather than later—could deliver the property tax relief everyone claims to support.

If this funding is delayed or derailed, both equity and adequacy will be diminished. Equity will be diminished whether or not towns make up for the ECS shortfalls with local dollars. Needier towns are less likely than more affluent ones to make up for the lack of state funding—decreasing the equalizing power of the ECS grant. And while more resources are not the only basis for adequacy, continued disparity of resources certainly reduces the chances for adequacy in those towns that rely most heavily on grants like ECS to support their education budgets.

It seems to me that, regardless of which way the court rules on adequacy, towns, boards of education, taxpayers, parents and children cannot afford to lose the current ECS funding battle.